News and Notes: Tuesday Edition

With season tickets sales this year running consistent with last
year's figures, Syracuse would appear to have a lock on the 2015
attendance title. And the Orange's first two home games bear that out. Syracuse drew 22,833 fans for its opener against Kennesaw State. That
number was lower than the 2013-14 opener when Syracuse beat Cornell in
front of 24,788 fans.

Cornell dropped all three of its games in the Charleston Classic to
take eighth place in the event. The Red (2-4) lost to South Carolina
(2-3) on Thursday, Penn State (4-1) on Friday and Drexel (1-4) on
Sunday.
On Thursday, Cornell started the tournament off strong against the
Gamecocks, connecting on its first four shots of the evening. In the
first five minutes, the Red took an 11-9 lead. South Carolina’s star
guard Sindarius Thornwell hit a three to give the Gamecocks the lead and
from then on South Carolina never looked back. Cornell began missing
shots and turning over the ball and five minutes later the score was
22-11 in favor of South Carolina.
Because of sloppy ball-handling by the Red, the Gamecocks had a
14-point advantage at the end of the first half. The Red had 13
turnovers and just one assist in the first half.
South Carolina started the second half with a 13-4 run and cruised to
a 69-45 victory, at one point taking a 28-point lead over the Red. The
45 points scored by Cornell were a full 13 points below its previous
season low. The brightest spot of the day may have been sophomore guard
JoJo Fallas, who knocked down all four of his shots, including three
three-pointers. He led the Red in scoring with 11 points.
Galal Cancer was the only other Red player in double digits, scoring
10, although it took him 13 shots to do so. After a hot start in the
first two games of the season, senior forward Shonn Miller was held to
below 10 points for the second straight game.
Overall, the Red shot a meager 29.6 percent from the field. The team was out-rebounded by 12 and out-assisted by 10.
Cornell seemed to have improved in Friday’s game against Penn State.
Thanks to a balanced scoring attack, the Red took a 10-point lead early
on against the Nittany Lions. Throughout the entire first half, Cornell
seemed in charge. Four separate plays scored six or more points for the
Red in that first half and the team as a whole shot 43 percent,
including five of 11 from beyond the arc.
The Nittany Lions came out firing in the second half and quickly cut
the lead to one. Sharp three-point shooting from the Red extended the
lead back up to 11. Within six minutes, that lead also evaporated and
Cornell maintained a slim lead for the next several minutes.
With 53 seconds left, a turnover by Devin Cherry caused a fast break
attempt for Penn State. David Onourah sprinted down the court and
blocked D.J. Newbill’s lay-up attempt off the glass. Cherry got the
rebound and took the ball coast-to-coast and scored on an acrobatic
lay-up, giving the Red a two-point advantage with just 44 seconds
remaining in the game.
On the next Cornell possession, Robert Hatter was purposely fouled
and sunk both free throws. Newbill countered with a pull-up jump shot.
Cornell was fouled again, this time sending Galal Cancer to the line; he
converted both shots. Geno Thorpe finished at the rim for Penn State,
cutting Cornell’s lead to two with 16 seconds left to play. Cancer was
again fouled and made both free throws.
On the next possession, Miller blocked Jordan Dickerson sending the
ball directly to Penn State’s Ross Travis. Travis quickly passed to John
Johnson, who knocked down the three-pointer, bringing the Nittany Lions
within one point of the Red with four seconds to go.
Miller tried to inbound the ball after a timeout, but his pass, a
lazy toss to half court, was stolen by Shep Garner, who then passed to
Newbill. Newbill blew past Cornell defenders and scored the game-winning
lay-up as time expired. He finished with a game-high of 26 points.
For the Red, Cancer and Hatter led the charge with 17 points apiece.
Cancer converted all 12 of his free throws. Overall, the Red shot
95 percent from the charity strip. Miller had 15 and Cherry scored 11
points, and also had seven rebounds and six assists, both team-highs.
The loss sent Cornell to the seventh place game against a winless
Drexel squad. In the beginning of the contest, the Red was dominant on
defense. Cornell’s pressure held the Dragons to just 17 points on 18%
shooting in the first half. The strong defensive performance allowed the
Red to take a nine-point advantage into the break, despite a lackluster
offensive showing, in which the Red shot 38 percent.
Cornell extended the lead to 14 early in the second half, but Drexel
clawed its way back and tied up the score with eight minutes left to
play in the game.
From that point on, it was the Damion Lee show. Lee, a 6’6” guard
averaging 19 points per game, scored or assisted 15 of the Drexel’s
final 20 points. He finished with 28 points, including 24 in the second
half.
Cornell continued to try to extend its lead, but every time the Red
made a shot, the Dragons answered with a made field goal of their own.
Eventually, Rashann London made a jump shot that gave Drexel the lead
with a minute and 35 seconds left in the contest. Cornell turned the
ball over on two of its next three possessions and the Dragons held on
to win, 61-59, taking seventh place in the Charleston Classic.
After starting the season by playing six games in 10 days, the Red
continues its packed schedule of games with a home matchup against
Canisius College (2-2) on Wednesday at 7 P.M.

...Penn State was outplayed by Cornell but stole the win, forcing a
turnover on an inbounds pass that led to Newbill’s game-winning layup at
the buzzer.

It brought back memories of Penn State’s 66-65 win over Indiana in February.

The Hoosiers turned it over on back-to-back inbounds plays in the final 15 seconds before a game-winning drive by Tim Frazier.

“That
situation kind of came to my mind while that game was happening,”
junior forward Donovon Jack said. “We were in so many close games last
year, bringing back a lot of veteran guys, we kind of had been there
before, kind of knew what to do.”

Penn State trailed Cornell 71-70 with 4.8 seconds left.

Shonn
Miller lofted an inbounds pass beyond halfcourt. When Garner grabbed
the loose ball, his first instinct was to look to score.

But when he saw Newbill open, he got him the ball with more than two seconds left.

“The
kid takes two dribbles — he’s a freshman, any kid in America would have
pulled up for a 35-foot 3 — but he didn’t,” Chambers said.

DJ Newbill hit a game winning layup against Cornell on Friday night as Penn State beat the Big Red 72-71.

But he doesn't remember it.

The play lasted just over four seconds -- the final four seconds of regulation.

With no timeouts, Cornell was forced to throw the ball into play,
landing at half court. Penn State freshman Shep Garner picked up the
loose ball, passing it back into the offensive end of the court to a
wide open DJ Newbill on the left wing. A drive, a layup and a victory
was all that was left.

"I didn't know what was going to happen," Newbill said on Monday. "I
saw him steal the pass and I'm like 'what's going to happen next?'
(Garner) looked up and we made eye contact and he threw it and I had to
shoot fast. I had to look on the camera (afterwards) to see what really
happened."

What is perhaps so amazing about Penn State's win was not that the
Nittany Lions pulled out the victory, but that in the span of so few
seconds so many good decision were made. From the defense on the
inbound, Garner's pass and Newbill's decision to take the ball to the
hoop, one weak link and Penn State would have been in a much different
situation.

"My first thought was taking the three," Newbill said. "I don't know,
I can't really tell you what happened in that moment. Everything
happened so fast. One moment I'm face guarding my man, the next moment
the ball is in my hands and I'm swinging baseline going in for the
layup. ... I knew I had time for one, two, dribble and a shot ... they
had a small lineup in, that's really why I wanted to take it to the
basket. The big man jumped out on me and once I swung through I was
going to go up strong and pray for the best."

But even as Newbill will be remembered for the basket, what impressed
the fifth year senior wasn't his own play, but that of the freshman
only four games into his college basketball career.

"For a young guy like that to hit his captain, that shows what kind
of guy he is, that he had that composure. You could tell he had been in
that moment before. I mean, me as a freshman I probably would have taken
the shot full court." Newbill said with a smile and a laugh.

And that kind of shot almost happened according to his counterpart.

"When I first got it I thought score," Garner said on Monday inside
the Jordan Center. "And then I saw DJ almost wide open with a clear lane
to the basket with two seconds left. So I thought, I'm gonna give it to
him because I know he's going to score it for us. It ended up being the
biggest play of the game."

That's safe to say.

Even if Penn State "shouldn't" have won that game on Friday night, it
was a notable moment for a team that has seen so many potential
victories evaporate in the final minute of play. There have been so many
losses by 5 points or less that most of the team has lost count.

There are a lot of different reasons why those losses happened. Some
were very much the doing of the Nittany Lions. But on a night when a
loss was there to be had, Penn State made the winning play that had so
frequently doomed them.

While living life on the edge is the recommended route to victory, learning how to steal a game is a skill worth having.